Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Six: The Fourth Section

He drew the fourth section alone on a Wednesday in December.

He had told Ellie he was drawing it. He had written to her on Monday: I am drawing the fourth section on Wednesday. I will send it to you on Wednesday evening. Tell me what you see.

She had written back: I will be at home. Send it when it is ready.

He had thought about drawing the fourth section alone — without Ellie at the drawing board, without the back-and-forth of the January Saturday. He had thought about this as the correct sequence: the first section Ellie's, the second drawn together, the third drawn together with Ellie correcting, the fourth drawn alone from the full accumulation of the attending. The fourth section is the architect's drawing from all the way in — the inside view produced after Raymond and Margaret and the south edge and the between-time and the kitchen correction and the south window as the breath.

He began with the ground.

He drew the ground first, the way he always drew it — the first truth, the thing the building rose from. The allotment ground, the good soil, the forty years of composting. He drew the ground with the care he gave every commission's ground — the site section, the slope and the levels, the south hedge and the field beyond it.

He thought about the community centre at the hinge between the tight village and the open field. He thought about the building as the village's first breath. He drew the south face of the building open to the field — the south window at forty centimetres wide, the December sun line entering the room at the level of the seated body and crossing the floor of the weight-bearing room to the north wall.

He had been drawing this for three sections now. He drew it again in the fourth and it was still correct — the practised line, the geometry confirmed by three drawings, the south window and the December light as the commission's first truth.

He drew the weight-bearing room.

In the fourth section he drew the weight-bearing room with the quality Raymond had named: the room wider than it was tall. He had begun this in the third section — the horizontal dimension dominant, the room that spread rather than rose. In the fourth section he drew it more clearly: the ceiling at two metres forty, the width at six metres, the room generous in its width as the village was tight in its lanes. The gathering room as the village's release.

He drew the kitchen in the south-east corner.

He had been thinking about the south-east kitchen since the allotment walk. He had been thinking about the geometry — the counter along the east wall, the window above the counter looking south-east, the field in the peripheral view of the person at work. He drew the counter at the correct height for the working body — not Frances's north-wall counter, but the same quality: the surface for the work that fed people, not the surface for display.

He drew the south-east window above the counter. He drew the window at standing height — not the forty-centimetre seated window of the weight-bearing room's south face, but the window for the person standing at the counter, the window that gave the field at the level of the working eye. He thought about the kitchen window as the working window — the north window he had specified in the three-generation kitchen, the steady working light. But in the south-east corner of the community centre the window was not north, it was south-east, the light that shifted. He thought about this — the shifting light in the working kitchen.

He thought: the kitchen is not where the long work happens. The between-time kitchen is for the cup of tea. The shifted south-east light is enough for the cup of tea. The person at the counter for five minutes does not need the steady north light. The person at the counter needs the field.

He drew the south-east window and wrote in the margin: the field in the working eye. The between-time window.

He drew the children's corner with the lower ceiling and the bench and the steps. He drew the window between the corner and the in-between room — the section of the growing up. He drew the in-between room at the two-metres-twenty-five ceiling with the table for four and the east window to watch the last light go.

He drew the entry. He drew the level floor and the covered approach and the coat hooks and the timber panel. He drew the no-commitment entry, the floor continuous from the outside to the inside, the body moving without effort from the December street into the weight-bearing room.

He drew the north wall. He drew the timber north wall — the acoustic panel, the material that held the celebration, the chain from the school hall through the practice to the community centre. He drew the timber as the vertical boards with the slight gaps, the living surface, the material breathing.

He sat back from the drawing board and looked at the fourth section.

The community centre in its fourth version — the south face open to the field at forty centimetres, the weight-bearing room wider than it was tall, the south-east kitchen with the between-time window and the field in the working eye, the children's corner with the bench and the step, the in-between room at the in-between ceiling, the level entry, the timber north wall. The December sun line crossing the floor of the weight-bearing room. The village at the hinge between the tight and the open, the building as the first breath.

He looked at the section and thought about the first section — Ellie's section, the Sunday evening photograph, the south window and the weight-bearing room and the corner and the covered approach, the beginning. He thought about the four versions and the approaching, the section getting closer to the truth with each drawing.

He thought: the fourth section is the most honest drawing of the commission.

He thought: the fourth section is from all the way in.

He thought about the fifth section. He thought: there may be a fifth. He thought about Patrick's school section and the authority approval and the compliance documentation. He thought about the community centre section going to the planning authority and the structural engineer and the parish council and returning with the corrections the process required.

He thought: the corrections will produce the fifth section.

He thought: the honest section is always in the process of becoming more honest.

He thought about the practice. He thought about the eleven years of approaching — the Farrow section on the paper napkin and all the sections between then and now and the community centre fourth section on the drawing board in December. He thought about the approaching as the permanent condition of honest practice.

He thought: I have been approaching the truth for eleven years.

He thought: I am still approaching.

He thought: this is the correct condition.

He photographed the section and sent it to Ellie.

She replied at nine-thirty in the evening — he had been at the desk writing in the commission notebook when the message arrived. She had written four words: the kitchen is right.

He thought about the kitchen being right. He thought about Raymond at the south edge saying the kitchen window should face the field. He thought about the south-east corner and the working eye and the field in the peripheral view and the between-time kitchen giving the field to the person making the tea.

He thought about Ellie's four words as the confirmation — the attending person reading the fourth section and finding the kitchen and knowing it was right without having been told about Raymond or the allotment or the thirty years of noticing.

He thought: the section carries the attendance even to the person who was not there.

He thought: this is the second test. The section has passed it.

He wrote to Ellie: Yes. The kitchen is right. Raymond showed me where it belonged.

Ellie wrote: I want to meet Raymond.

He thought about Ellie meeting Raymond. He thought about the eleven-year-old and the sixty-three-year-old caretaker. He thought about the person who had been attending to the between-time for thirty years and the person who had been drawing the room for the between-time for two years. He thought about what they would give each other.

He thought: Raymond will give Ellie the between-time from all the way in. Ellie will give Raymond the drawing of what he already knows.

He thought: the meeting will produce the fifth section.

He wrote to Ellie: Come to the village on Saturday. We will walk the allotment with Raymond before the light goes.

He was glad.

He was, in the weight of the December Wednesday and the fourth section on the drawing board and the kitchen right and Ellie reading the section and Raymond not yet met by Ellie and the Saturday allotment not yet walked and the fifth section not yet begun and the community centre approaching its truth and the practice still in its approaching and all the rooms in their December and the chain continuing, glad.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Six